Sigma Diva, Thanks for the history lesson. You put the founding of the Divine 9 and HBCUs in context for me. :)

I am with lifesaver. This is a big deal if the great John Hammell posts.

cashmoney, I think that you would have more credibility if you posted under your user name or told us what that name is. Right now you seem to be having a temper tantrum for everyone on GC to read.

I agree with how OTW wants to handle that situation. I am not a moderator. I have been here for 2 years. I must say that the overwhelming majority of the time the moderators have done a great job. I am certain that they will again now. :)

Actually the poster Cashmoney makes a good and intellegent argument. Many of which are right on. I am not sure how rectifiable the situation is, or even how urgent it is.

The people that have posted on topic, on both sides of the issue, have done a pretty good job of stating their positions.

I am just not sure what anyone wants to come of it.

1. Is there favoritism on GC? Absolutely.

2. Are there people that hate other people on GC and will talk badly about them at any given opportunity? Absolutely.

3. Are there cliques on GC? Absolutely.

4. Are some of the cliques pretty negative? Subjective, but absolutely.

5. Are there IM/Pm networks of people that share hatred of people? Absolutely.

6. Are there really nice people that enjoy GC? Absolutely.

7. Are there people that don't get involved in the silly stuff on here, or even care about it? Absolutely. Probably 80 percent of the posters.

S&S: No offence to you... But I care about it a bit either way. John's intervention & comments have perhaps called cashmoney's motives into question but the first post in the thread, justamom's comments and a whole bunch of others have struck a chord. This thread, though various names have been mentioned in it isn't about any one, two or three people; examples are used just to give a frame of reference to make thing clear. So even if a question marks hangs over the intentions of this thread’s creation then hopefully we can still make something useful out of it. :)

1) I see FAR too many posts these days with some sort of disclaimer in them "this isn't a flame post/don’t take this the wrong way" type message attached. We all know a flame post subtle or otherwise. Even I've found myself typing dumb disclaimers. I'm thinking what am I doing?! There's too much walking on eggshells going on here. It's either not a flamey thing hence no need for a disclaimer (!!!!) or it is - in which case the Send button should not be clicked :). The disclaimer thing might have its place but not to such frequency. It’s been picked up on by others too, here and in the glo forums - NPHC or otherwise. I just think it’s a shame people think they have to do that with a perfectly harmless post just in the hope of not being attacked. :(

2) And I've seen far too many replies which start out or contain "I don't really care about this topic..." in which case ok start one close to your heart! :) Though the large part of gc stuff interests me I don’t have an interest in some specific items discussed sometimes - inevitably - but I don’t wander into the thread to announce how I don’t really care about it!
Thread drift, where the item being discussed changes over time, happens; on mailing lists or whatever else. I mean, if say the movie Gattaca was being discussed, then genetics would come into conversation, then the moral issues concerning them, then religion ... sooner or later comes a point when the original topic is lost. Now, when that happens organically it might be one thing but people jumping on threads they have no interest in to wreck it is another. Starting up a new thread is allowed too.

4) Jumping on points where it seems to be more like a sport to do so and less in the interests of furthering debate or reaching goals. It isn’t consigned to any one forum, any part of GreekChat. I’ve seen on the NPHC forums links to threads posted with a message "Flame away people!! <smiley>". I’m not saying stupidity should be ignored or knocked on the head or that suddenly no-one has a right to reply, just that going into discussions and making comments until the thread becomes impossible to have any further constructive debate in seems to be happening a fair bit. Not consigned to any one forum!

5) Possible motives for it's originally being brought up aside, the hierarchy (one rule for the aristocracy ;) ) has some truth in it OR at least merits comment. The point that something posted by one person is one thing but when that same sorta thing is posted by someone else it’s "Oh that's just ole Dillon. Bless his heart he's a card" (I dunno if we have Dillons here I was just trying to be non-specific to any one person). And I am aware 'knowing' some people allows us to understand nothing was meant and the remark was misinterpreted I’m talking more about “difficult” posts which are just that, ‘cept posted by one of the people who’re somehow allowed to do so. I've in more than one post attempted to justify why I'm here (God only knows why I bothered doing that) so moving on from the fact I am here why do I care? Well in response to the taking it too seriously crew, no GreekChat isn't my life, non-participation on my or the next person's part will not mean Armageddon, I do little to solve world hunger with my :p posts - but for one reason or another ALL legitimate users find GreekChat useful so it'd be a shame for things to deteriorate to the point it's not quite such a good place to be. I find it a useful, enriching resource.
This whole debate has come up before:

Now let's try replacing "on GC" with "in the real world."

1. Is there favoritism in the real world? Absolutely.

2. Are there people that hate other people in the real world and will talk badly about them at any given opportunity? Absolutely.

3. Are there cliques in the real world? Absolutely.

4. Are some of the cliques pretty negative? Subjective, but absolutely.

5. Are there networks of people that share hatred of people in the real world and will talk isht about them behind their backs? Absolutely.

6. Are there really nice people that enjoy life in the real world, even given these drawbacks? Absolutely.

7. Are there people that don't get involved in the silly drama in their offline lives? Absolutely. Probably 80 percent of them.


I just don't understand why people expect this to be so different from the way things are offline. Yes, we have moderators here -- something that is lacking in the offline world -- but they're not supposed to serve as our parents. What are they supposed to do to fix this situation? Say, "Kath, Blaine, and Heather -- you guys aren't allowed to be friends because that's too cliquey and other people on GC are upset by it"? Give me a break.

The reason that posters that have been here a while get cut more slack than those who haven't is that we know the context of their posts. Yeah, we know damasa can be a jer :p but we also know that he is an awesome guy who is serious about 90 percent of the things he posts. We know Rudey can come off as an ass, but we also know that he's just messing around. New posters don't get the same benefit of the doubt.

Now it would be great if the moderators were one hundred percent fair and objective and wonderful and were able to please everyone all the time, but guess what? They're human, they see things subjectively, and they can't. I know that even those at the "top of the GC heirarchy," people who have been here for years or people who have thousands of posts, even moderators, have had posts deleted or contributed to getting threads locked. Nobody is immune to it.

You have a PM!;)

Being a mod is about being in a positon of leadership. Some should change the way they are, people look to mods on this site for leadership in a sense. No one ever said certain people can't be friends or have cliques. No one is upset about having cliques or friends here. You are missing the point behind the message. It's about being in certain clicks and having the luxury of getting away with stuff to an extent and then others don't have that luxury. And you are right about the way things are in the real world. People say and do what they want and are allowed to do so. But, if this site is to be ran as if it were the " real" world, 3/4 of the people who have their posts deleted or are banned would not have been done they way they were. Right?

My motives were pure in the thought of starting this thread.

Let's review policy again.

Mods lock or delete threads and posts when either
(1) they find the content offensive
or
(2) enough people complain that the post is offensive

Therefore, if the threads that offend you aren't getting deleted, that means that either you're not reporting them to the moderators, or you're the only one offended.

Under this system, of course there's going to be a "heirarchy," because people aren't going to be offended by posts from their friends, and the longer you've been around GC, the more friends you make around here. Nobody's going to get offended if I say, "Kath, you're such a whore" because they know I'm kidding. If somebody who had just showed up on the boards said it, they don't know if they mean it or if they're just joking around, and that's where the problems start.

I had already commented on this is my previous post. But, to iterate yes there are posts meant in different ways no-one is suggesting otherwise. I speak to people from GC on AIM, one when I say certain stuff calls me a dork - it's affectionately meant i.e. I know she's kidding. The conversation was about posts which can't be taken in the kindly spirit they were meant because those messages were not meant as gentle joshing between GreekChat buddies. An _actual_ attack is no nicer coming from joenewuser than janeolduser. Yet the thread is about the concept of jane getting immunity.

Seriously someone tell Decadence to stop writing posts the length of the dead sea scrolls every time he comes on here.

-Rudey
--I feel like I read the Brothers Karamazov every time that shmuch posts.

So if a few different groups of friends here decide to complain about posts made by certain people, it's ok for their posts to be deleted and/or banned? But if one person finds one of the other posts to be flamatory or offensive, and the mod doesn't feel the same, nothing should happen? Regardless of whether or not the posts in question did in fact break GC rules/terms of agreement? So basically all your saying is that if enough people complain about person X, he/she will have something done to them. But if person X feels the same about one them, since he's the only one complaining they then get away with stuff? This has been going on for a long time.

If you want to talk about policy, read the terms of agreement and see how many here break them. From your post it seems as though you're ok with an hierarchy. I would assume you're ok with that because you're one of the people who has in the past got away with a lot of stuff. And that would be correct. A lot of people who get away with a lot of stuff have steered clear from posting in this thread, mainly non-mods.

I don't understand some things.

I personally think that one member on here has the potential to be very violent. I don't care if others see it, but I see it in the way he writes. He scares me. I pointed this out, my post got deleted, he posted something awful and later deleted it, and then pm'd me scary things about slapping me.

I find it unfair how the mod simply ignored how I felt. I can't say how I feel anymore?

I also don't understand why my thread on disgusting vaginas disappeared. Seriously it was funny and deserved to be on there but hey I guess it was more offensive than Male penises smelling ("does my junk stink?") and less interesting than the 5 homos you'd like to punch thread.

-Rudey
--I need to be compensated for my emotional troubles!

I disagree. Granted, I am not a mod, but I don't think they are in a "leadership" position...it's not like they are leading us. They are, however, in a volunteer position and don't deserve some of the grief they get. Also, there is no reason they should "change the way they are" just because they are moderators.

Cashmoney, I'm guessing you really don't want to name names here, but I for one think that it would be helpful to understand your problem if I knew exactly what you're talking about when you make these references. Obviously I'm not a mod, and I don't feel that I'm part of any hierarchy or clique, and I'm a little lost. I can't say that I've ever had a problem with any of the bannings that have happened here, but I'm sure there are many posts that have been deleted (or maybe ones that should've been, according to others) and I just haven't seen them.

In other words, if you can point me to specific threads with specific offensive posts, I could better understand you.

BTW, this is one of the most interesting threads that's been in chit chat for a while.

But the point is that you don't know damasa the way some of us who have been around GC longer or know him outside of GC do. In the thread in question, you took what may or may not have been a personal attack (and speaking from personal experience, was probably not) and proceeded to counter-attack. It was only until your counter-attack that things got ugly. Having been on the receiving end of some of his sarcastic remarks (some of them before I had ever spoken to him off GC), I'm pretty sure that it was an overreaction on your part.